Lunch budget: retailers deprive restaurants of visitors
Restaurants are losing popularity among Russians: the number of receipts in individual chains has decreased by 4-13%, Izvestia has learned. Against the background of the strengthening of the savings model of behavior, consumers are less likely to visit catering establishments, reduce the average check and more often choose inexpensive items on the menu. At the same time, the demand for ready-made food is growing, which retailers are actively developing. By the end of 2025, this market increased by 20% and exceeded 1.1 trillion rubles, according to Infoline data. The trends that are transforming the catering industry are described in the Izvestia article.
Why Russians have become less likely to go to restaurants
A significant part of consumers are leaving restaurants for the ready-to-eat segment, said Sergey Mironov, founder of Meat & Fish franchising establishments, chairman of the Coordinating Council of the Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers (FRiO). This market partially replaces catering for consumers, agrees Yulia Titova, Director of R&D (Research and Development) at GC Shokoladnitsa.
In the Honest Fish seafood bar chain, the number of receipts decreased by 5% in 2025, said owner Natalie Dmitrenko. According to her, the guests began to visit the establishments less often. A source of Izvestia in a large network also talks about a decrease in sales by 10-13%. The drop in the flow was especially noticeable in the restaurants of the middle price segment, added Natalie Dmitrenko. In Moscow, the number of orders in catering establishments decreased by 4% year-on-year, Mikhail Vasiliev, head of research and consulting at Focus Technologies, told Izvestia.
According to the results of 2025, the number of purchases in catering increased by only 2% year-on-year compared to 7% in 2024, according to the data from the Check Index service of the OFD Platform (it takes into account information from 1.1 million online sales registers). The slowdown in this market is due to the limitations of consumers' real incomes and budgets, Natalie Dmitrenko believes. This, she says, forces them to save on entertainment and eating out. The situation is being exacerbated by the increased costs of restaurants, she continued.
The costs of logistics, rent, energy and electricity costs have increased, Yulia Titova listed. The annual indexation stipulated in the lease agreements is 10%, added Sergey Mironov. Establishments are forced to raise prices to compensate for the increased costs — without this, many simply would not be able to remain profitable, Natalie Dmitrienko said.
The average cost of lunch in a restaurant per person in 2025 was 1,417 rubles (+15% year-on-year), according to Rosstat data. Lunch in the dining room also went up by 15%, to 550 rubles per person.
In 2025, large chains closed their establishments more often, Izvestia wrote. According to the Kontur service.Focus", 35.4 thousand catering enterprises were liquidated last year — almost 10% more than in 2024.
What awaits the market of finished products
The shift of consumers from restaurants to the ready—to-eat segment is one of the most pronounced transformations in the food segment last year, said Ilya Bereznyuk, Managing Partner of Agro and Food Communications. By the end of 2025, the ready-to-eat food market amounted to 1.1 trillion rubles, which is 20% more than in 2024, the analytical company Infoline estimated. According to her, in January – June of last year (the latest available data), sales of these products at X5 (Pyaterochka, Perekrestok, Chizhik) increased by 38%, to 99.4 billion rubles, Magnita — by 31%, to 39.7 billion, at Lenta group — by 28%, up to 15.6 billion. In the latter, sales of ready—made food in the chain's hypermarkets increased by more than 15%, and in supermarkets by almost 1.6 times, said a representative of the group.
Pyaterochka and Perekrestok retail chains record a 30% year-on-year increase in finished products, said a representative of X5. In Magnit, culinary sales increased "by tens of percent" in units, his representative said. This is due to the urbanization of the population, the acceleration of the rhythm of life, the desire to save time, as well as the desire of the buyer to diversify the diet, explained the representative of Lenta.
The growth of the category will continue in the near future, the X5 representative believes. This is facilitated, among other things, by the prominent role of the younger generation, for whom the purchase of ready meals has already become a familiar scenario of consumer behavior, said the representative of Magnit.
In "Kofemania", "Tasty — that's it" and Novikov Group ("Farm", "Pro.Khinkali", "5642 Height", etc.) declined to comment.
The turnover of restaurants is growing, but due to an increase in the average check, said Olga Lebedinskaya, Associate Professor of Statistics at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. According to Rosstat, the turnover of catering establishments in the country in 2025 increased by 8.7% (in comparable prices) compared to 2024 and amounted to 4.287 trillion rubles. This year, a further increase in production costs will continue to put pressure on the restaurant market, Natalie Dmitrenko believes.
Ilya Bereznyuk predicts that the trend of consumer overflow will increase. According to his estimates, sales of ready-made portioned meals may grow by more than 2.5 times by 2030.
A reduction in the Central Bank's key rate in the second half of 2026 may contribute to a change in this trend, the expert believes. This can stimulate the growth of consumer activity, including in the restaurant segment. However, even this effect will not be able to fully compensate for the structural shifts in favor of ready-made food in retail, he stressed. According to the expert, the catering market has already entered the stage of transformation, which will unfold in the next two to three years.
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